Chris Sawyer's Locomotion

Chris Sawyer's Locomotion (often simply Locomotion) is a video game designed and programmed by independent game developer Chris Sawyer, and published by Atari Interactive in September 2004. The game is a simulation game in which the player takes on the role of a transportation company manager, building transportation networks and managing the flow of goods and passengers in order to compete against rival companies. Sawyer independently developed the game over nine years from the 1990s as a "spiritual successor to Transport Tycoon", with the game featuring "fundamentally the same" gameplay but with "differences in detail, scale and presentation" to update and refine the features that Sawyer "wanted to get right" in its predecessor.

Locomotion was released to mixed reviews, with critics feeling the game's presentation was dated for its time and was less user-friendly than its predecessors. Following an extended hiatus from the video game industry, the game's engine was used as the basis for a 2013 mobile iteration of Transport Tycoon for Android and iOS. Locomotion has also since received an unofficial, open source reimplementation, known as OpenLoco.

Gameplay

thumb|left|A screenshot of gameplay in Locomotion

Locomotion is an isometric transport simulation game using a refined version of the Transport Tycoon engine first used for RollerCoaster Tycoon 2. The game involves the management of a transport company to construct a network of trains, trams, trucks, buses, aeroplanes, and ships to co-ordinate a supply chain of resources, including minerals, goods, and passengers across industries to towns and cities. Players start with a bank loan and must build profitable networks to facilitate the supply and demand of resources to earn money and expand their company. To transport resources, players build networks between stations using road, rail, ports, and airports, and purchase vehicles of varying cost, speed, and reliability to travel between them. Players create profitable networks by transporting goods and passengers in efficient networks across greater distances, whilst minimising transport costs.

Locomotion contains over 40 scenarios in which players compete with rival companies to create successful networks and meet various objectives, such as finishing in a certain ranking in the list of companies, or transporting a specific amount of cargo of a resource. Scenarios are based on five difficulty levels: Beginner, Easy, Medium, Challenging and Expert, and are based on fictional and real-world locations, including the United States, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The game also contains a scenario editor to allow players to create and modify the game's scenarios and create custom maps. Scenarios in Locomotion also supports online multiplayer for two players, which plays identically to single player scenarios except with minor restrictions to speed controls.

Development and release

Locomotion was developed by game developer Chris Sawyer, who had previously developed the simulation game Transport Tycoon. Sawyer intended Locomotion to be a "spiritual successor" to Transport Tycoon, and had worked to complete such a game as early as 1996, but did not make a serious effort to create a successor until the release of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2 in 2002. The game is the only title released by Sawyer to use his name in the title of the game. Sawyer stated that the use of his name in the title of Locomotion was used to address "possible legal issues with using the name on its own...which also suited the PR people as they felt it might make it easier to promote the game having my name prominently displayed." Sawyer stated that Locomotion was the game he was "most proud of" creating, assessing the game as "the best-written piece of programming I've ever done," citing the plug-in and multiplayer capabilities of the game.

Following an extended hiatus from development, in 2013, Sawyer released an Android and iOS version of Transport Tycoon, with the game's graphics and primarily based on the design of Locomotion. Sawyer expressed the desire to make the game based on the tactical challenge of running the game on a mobile device, stating "the tactile nature of interactive isometric simulation-strategy games really suits the touch screen interface."

| GSpot = 6.8

| GSpy = 2/5

| IGN = 5.8

| JXV = 3/20

| PCZone = 50% / 37% / 62%

Reviews of Locomotion were generally mixed, with review aggregator Metacritic stating reviews were "mixed or average" with an average rating of 59%. Many critics compared the game unfavorably to its predecessors, Rollercoaster Tycoon and Transport Tycoon, with minimal improvements to the presentation, game mechanics and user interface. Owen Faraday of Wired similarly stated the game "drew a tepid reception from critics and fans alike, perhaps a sign that Sawyer's full attention couldn't be brought to bear on the (game)."

Legacy

Locomotion was Sawyer's final game for some time. Sawyer was in legal dispute with Atari from 2005 to 2008 over unpaid royalties for his work. This dispute, and the poor reception for Locomotion led him to depart the industry for a decade. He later returned to work on mobile ports of his earlier work.

OpenLoco

In January 2018, the open-source project OpenLoco was launched to enhance the gameplay of Locomotion. The project was founded by a group of developers from OpenRCT2, a similar open source reimplementation of RollerCoaster Tycoon 2. The OpenLoco team aimed to fix bugs, translate the game to more languages, support custom resolutions including 4K, and operating systems such as macOS and Linux. The project also sought to minimise limitations in the original game and give greater options for gameplay features, such as disabling vehicle breakdowns and unlocking building options. By 2021 OpenLoco was "getting into a pretty good state" according to Gaming on Linux, with multiplayer support in development. The project was praised by Game Pressure in 2024, which described it as an "unofficial remaster".